KQED's Forum

When writer Britt Young, who was born without most of her left forearm, got an expensive, high tech myoelectric prosthetic four years ago she was so excited she threw an “arm party”. But the prosthetic was heavy and hard to use and she hardly ever put it on again. In an article in IEEE Spectrum, Young says the media and the tech world have been seduced by whiz-bang prosthetic technology at the expense of what most disabled people really need: access, reliability and affordability. “We are caught in a bionic-hand arms race” she writes “It’s time to ask who prostheses are really for, and what we hope they will actually accomplish.”Guests:Britt H Young, writer, "The Bionic-Hand Arms Race" in IEEE; PhD candidate in Geography, UC Berkeley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“It’s hard to say exactly when PG&E Corporation began to fall,” writes Wall Street Journal energy reporter Katherine Blunt. But the deep decline of the state’s largest utility was hardly more apparent than in the aftermath of the 2018 Camp Fire, the blaze ignited by PG&E’s deteriorated equipment that killed 85 people and destroyed the Northern California town of Paradise. Blunt’s new book “California Burning” explains how the Camp Fire exposed the utility’s systemic problems — including chronic mismanagement and criminal neglect of its infrastructure — and why PG&E’s failures are not just a California story, but a cautionary tale for the entire nation’s power grid.Guests:Katherine Blunt, energy reporter, Wall Street Journal; author, "California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric—And What It Means for America’s Power Grid" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Big changes are planned for San Francisco’s beloved Castro Theater, which celebrated its 100th birthday this year. Live music promoter Another Planet Entertainment, which now manages the storied venue, wants to restore and renovate it. That includes replacing the orchestra style seats with removable ones allowing for standing room concerts. But more than five thousand fans of the theater have signed a petition opposing the renovation. We’ll talk about the future of the Castro Theater and we want to hear from you. Share one of your favorite memories from the Castro Theater.Guests:Gabe Meline, senior editor, KQED Arts & Culture.Peter Pastreich, executive director, Castro Theatre Conservancy - a nonprofit committed to the preservation of the Castro Theatre, and to the preservation of the kind of programming that has served its community and San Francisco for the last 100 years.Gregg Perloff, CEO, Another Planet Entretainment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The artificial intelligence-powered image generator DALL-E 2 can take any words you type in — like "purple kittens snorkeling in the style of Monet" — and create that as a picture. There are some company-imposed limitations to what you can tell the AI to make: you can’t upload faces and you can’t generate images of public figures. But as fake images and videos become easier to generate— by anyone — what does the new landscape of online misinformation look like? Deepfake expert Hany Farid joins us to share his fears and hopes for this brave new world of image generation.Related link(s):Tom Cruise Deepfake TikTokGuests:Hany Farid, professor with a joint appointment in electrical engineering & computer sciences and the School of Information, UC Berkeley.Lama Ahmad, policy researcher, OpenAI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sonoma native Ada Limón sees her work as the nation’s new poet laureate as “elevating and promoting the expansiveness of poetry.” Limón's poems cover a huge range of subjects, from groundhogs to grief. “Poetry allows us to breathe,” she said in an interview after being selected as poet laureate. “I really truly believe with my whole body in the power of poetry and in the power of poetry to heal and bring together communities.” Limón joins us to talk about her work, her love of poetry, and how she’s reimagining America’s relationship to poetry. Related link(s): The Contract Says: We'd Like the Conversation to be Bilingual A New National Anthem National Poetry Month 2022: Ada Limón Reads “A Good Story” Guests:Ada Limón, poet, 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the pandemic, experts seemed to have plans on how to open up bars, malls, and airports, but no real idea about how to open schools consistently across the country and how to put children’s needs first. In her new book “The Stolen Year,” education reporter Anya Kamenetz offers a thorough autopsy of how Covid unfolded for kids. Beginning with the early days of the pandemic, Kamenetz examines how the intense pressure Covid put on schools exposed the inequities woven into the fabric of American life, including the impact of racism, childhood poverty and hunger, inadequate childcare, and dysfunctional politics, among other issues. We’ll talk with Kamenetz about what went well, what went wrong, and where to go next.Guests:Anya Kamenetz, education reporter and author, "The Stolen Year: How Covid Changed Children's Lives, and Where We Go Now," "The Art of Screen Time: How Your Family Can Balance Digital Media and Real Life" and "The Test: How to Survive Our National Obsession with Standardized Testing." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People often like to introduce novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah as a writer who tackles the traumas and aftereffects of colonialism, especially in East Africa. But in accepting the Nobel Prize for literature last year, he made space for the fullness of all lives, not least those living in traumatic places. “Writing cannot be just about battling and polemics, however invigorating and comforting that can be,” he said. “Writing is not about one thing, not about this issue or that, or this concern or another, and since its concern is human life in one way or another, sooner or later cruelty and love and weakness become its subject.” We’ll talk to Gurnah about his gorgeous novel "After Lives" which is being published in the U.S. this month.Guests:Abdulrazak Gurnah, novelist and author, "After Lives" - winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brittney Griner, the WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist, remains detained in Russia after a court there sentenced her earlier this month to nine years in prison for carrying a small amount of hashish oil into the country. Her conviction and sentence came after a month-long trial widely denounced as a sham designed to give Russia political leverage over the United States. Griner’s case, painful in its injustice, is not unique: foreign governments are unlawfully holding dozens of Americans, and government hostage-taking is on the rise. We’ll talk about the impacts on families of political prisoners and what it may take to bring Griner and other Americans home.Guests:Jason Rezaian, global opinions writer, The Washington Post; author, "Prisoner: My 544 Days in an Iranian Prison–Solitary Confinement, a Sham Trial, High-Stakes Diplomacy, and the Extraordinary Efforts It Took to Get Me Out"Danielle Gilbert, Rosenwald fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy & International Security, Dartmouth CollegeKierra Johnson, executive director, National LGBTQ Task Force Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When the first coffee shop or food truck rolls into a neighborhood, many locals have come to fear what might be coming next: rising housing prices and displacement. Restaurants, farmers markets and coffee shops are often a harbinger of gentrification. Some restaurateurs, and the food critics that send customers their way, have been grappling with the role they play in disrupting longstanding communities, and what they can do to create a positive presence in a community. As part of our regular series, All You Can Eat, with KQED food editor Luke Tsai, we’ll talk with food critics and food professionals about gentrification, food and community.Guests:Cesar Hernandez, associate restaurant critic, San Francisco ChronicleLuke Tsai, food editor, KQEDMona Holmes, reporter, Eater Los AngelesReem Assil, chef, Reem's California; author, "Arabiyya: Recipes From the Life of An Arab in Diaspora"Jay Foster, chef, restauranteur and marketplace general manager, La Cocina - non profit that helps immigrant women formalize their food businesses Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who guided the U.S. through the AIDS and Covid-19 pandemics, announced on Monday that he’s stepping down in December as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and as chief medical advisor to President Biden. Meanwhile, CDC chief Rochelle Walensky has announced plans to overhaul the agency, telling staff in an internal video last week that it's "responsible for some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes" in its handling of Covid-19. We talk to UCSF's Dr. Bob Wachter about both events and hear your reflections.Guests:Dr. Robert "Bob" Wachter, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine, University of California, San FranciscoMichael Specter, staff writer, The New Yorker; author of "Fauci" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices